UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering Blog

Friday, January 21, 2011

Have you check out the latest issue of Pulse?

If you missed it, the latest version of Pulse, the Jacobs School magazine is online and in print. If you're an alumnus of the Jacobs School and would like to get the bi-annual magazine in the mail, let me know.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Electrical Engineers Engage with Audi on Urban Car Problems

There is an interesting Calit2 story out today about a new research initiative launched by Audi, its Electronics Research Laboratory in Silicon Valley, the University of California, San Diego and three other major U.S. research universities will develop technologies aimed at easing the congestion, dangers and inconveniences that often confront drivers in the world’s biggest cities

The new three-year research initiative is called “Audi Urban Intelligent Assist.” The aim is to take connected car, driver assistance and infrastructure electronics to the next level of providing detailed information so motorists have a better sense of the driving conditions surrounding them.

“Safety on urban roads will require a very deep understanding of the driver and his or her environment,” added UC San Diego electrical and computer engineering professor Mohan Trivedi, director of the university’s Laboratory for Intelligent and Safe Automobiles (LISA), within the Jacobs School of Engineering. “With the proliferation of consumer electronics devices in and on-board vehicles, a major challenge in front of us is to ensure that assistance systems really help rather than distract or irritate the driver.”

Read the full story on the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering site.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Entrepreneur Challenge / Elevator Pitch Finals Jan 19

Elevator pitch finals are Jan 19, 6-8 PM in the Student Services Center (multipurpose room) here at UC San Diego. RSVP for the event.

Keynote: Dr. Philip Low (CEO/Founder/Chairman) of NeuroVigil.

$1,000 is up for grabs in the 5th Annual UC San Diego Entrepreneur Challenge Winter Kickoff and Elevator Pitch Competition. The event features the top 8 submissions to the E. Challenge Elevator Pitch Competition who will have the opportunity to pitch their ventures live to an audience of several hundred. The best pitch will be determined by audience vote and the winner will be awarded $1,000.

The event is moderated by past E. Challenge winner and successful startup founder and CEO, Dr. Philip Low. Dr. Low is a graduate of the Salk Institute and the winner of the 2007-2008 Entrepreneur Challenge. Dr. Low has also won several other national business plan competitions including the prestigious Draper Fisher Jurvetson Venture Challenge, been named as one of the Top 35 Under 35 Innovators by the MIT Technology Review, won the 2010 CONNECT Most Innovative Product award in Life Sciences and operated successfully out of Neurovigil's La Jolla offices.

NOVA: Making Stuff Stronger / Jacobs School Research

January 19 is the premier of "Making Stuff: Stronger" on NOVA. I haven't seen the show, but from the preview it looks like research from Jacobs School of Engineering professor Marc Meyers made it into the final version. Meyers is a professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE).

UCSD-TV: The Future of Technology

Qualcomm co-founder Irwin Jacobs and venture capitalist Bill Stensrud join journalist Scott Lewis for a lively discussion on where technology is headed and how it will be used to improve education in developing countries in this event sponsored by the Voice of San Diego.org. (#20478)

First Aired: 1/10/2011
57 minutes

Friday, January 14, 2011

Solar Concentrator from Jacobs School Featured in Optics & Photonics News

An electrical engineering project to develop better solar concentrators landed on the cover of Optics & Photonics News, published by OSA.

Read the Optics & Photonics News story by Valerie C. Coffey here.

This project, from electrical engineering professor Joseph Ford's Photonic Systems Integration Laboratory here in the Jacobs School of Engineering.

This research project won the best poster at the Jacobs School's Research Expo 2010.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Bioengineers ‘Pump’ Life Into Post-Heart Attack Therapies

Jennifer Young chose the field of bioengineering because of its promise, cutting-edge nature and countless interesting applications. Young, a bioengineering Ph.D. student at UC San Diego, is contributing to these novel, cutting-edge breakthroughs through her countless hours in the lab.

One of her breakthrough discoveries is outlined in a paper she recently co-authored in Biomaterials called “Hydrogels with time-dependent material properties enhance cardiomyocyte differentiation in vitro.” The paper, co-authored by Adam J. Engler, an assistant bioengineering professor at UC San Diego, describes how the researchers measured the increase in stiffness that occurs in heart muscle as it develops, and then mimicked that change in a modified version of a biological material called hyaluronic acid. Pre-cardiac cells grown on these materials were found to mature into adult heart cells better than when grown on materials that did not stiffen. This process occurred despite not having the proper chemical signals around them and shows how important stiffness can be to cells.

This is why the researchers’ finding is important: Stem cells are often injected into the scar tissue that results from a heart attack (called “myocardial infarction”) in a treatment called cellular cardiomyoplasty. This scar tissue is three-to-four-times stiffer than normal muscle. Since cells are normally responsive to stiffness, the stiff scar helps to block their ability to become muscle. Instead, they turn into immature bone.

“Our hypothesis for this latest effort was that we need to develop a material which we can inject that stiffens as the heart does naturally during development,” Engler said. “By placing pre-cardiac cells onto this material and allowing it to stiffen from a soft material to one that resembled normal muscle (and not the stiff scar), we can better ‘program’ the cells to become mature cardiac muscle. What we observed was that this is indeed the case.”

Next on the bioengineers’ list is to conduct studies with animal experiments to see if the combination of stem cells and their material helps regenerate muscle rather than have the injected cells become immature bone as which often occurs with cellular cardiomyoplasty.

Young is excited about the clinical application of her research – the potential to help improve the quality of life of patients who suffer from acute myocardial infarction (heart attack).

“It is always a very satisfying feeling to solve a challenging problem,” she said. “It is rewarding to make a contribution to the field, and to see your hard work pay off. However, in a way, the most satisfying part of a breakthrough is identifying the next obstacle that needs to be overcome.”